See The Magic

Hello, and welcome to another magical installment of Obscure Arcana. It’s Divination Week, and it doesn’t take a scrying spell or the ability to see the future to know that that means today’s article will probably be all about spells from that most misunderstood of schools: divination. And, of course, you’re right. But rather than dwell on just how clever you are, why don’t we dive into today’s spells?

Ardesalf’s Opportune Moment

You gain a temporary, intuitive insight into the flow of magic, allowing you to cast a single spell that is more difficult to resist. The next spell you cast that allows a saving throw has the DC of that saving throw increased by +2. Additionally, you gain a +10 bonus on any rolls made to overcome spell resistance for that spell. If these benefits are not used before the end of your next round, the benefit is wasted.

Detect Lies

You attune your ears to ferret out deliberate lies that are spoken in your presence. For the spell’s duration, if you hear any creature telling a deliberate falsehood, you immediately and intuitively know that they are lying, as their words literally ring false in your ears with a supernatural reverberation. In order to be detected, the lie must be deliberate (i.e., the speaker must know that he is not speaking the truth), and it must truly be a lie (simply omitting the truth, or saying something that is misleading but technically true is not enough to trigger the spell). You also do not gain any special insight into what the truth is: you only know that the speaker is lying. Creatures under the effects of glibness, nondetection, or similar magic can lie freely without alerting you.

Heridus’s Early Warning

This spell gives you flashes of insight, warning you when danger is about to befall. For the spell’s duration, you gain an insight bonus on all Initiative checks equal to your primary spellcasting ability score modifier (Intelligence for wizards, Charisma for sorcerers, etc.).

Legend Lore, Greater

This functions as the spell legend lore, except as noted here. Unlike legend lore, you can use this spell to gain information about any subject, whether legendary or not, although in the case of particularly non-legendary subjects there may not be much worth knowing. Additionally, you can use greater legend lore to learn about subjects about which you do not even have rumors, although in this case you must provide a description of some sort. In this case, the result of the spell is 1d4 rumors about things that fit the description. For each such rumor, there is 25% chance it is completely false, a 25% chance that it is completely true, and a 50% chance that it contains some elements of both truth and falsehood (for example, you could use the spell to inquire about “powerful green dragons,” in which case you would receive 1d4 rumors about specific powerful green dragons. These could be 1d4 rumors about the same powerful green dragon, but more likely would be about different green dragons. Assuming a given rumor had enough truth to it, you could then use a separate casting of greater legend lore to further research the subject.).

Reflections of the Past

With this spell, you touch a single reflective object (such as a mirror, a well-polished blade or metal shield, or a lake or stream), and concentrate on a specific time or event, such as “noon yesterday” or “when the duchess was murdered.” Then, that event is reflected in the surface of the reflective object, exactly as it was reflected when it happened. At most, the spell can show events that occurred as far back as 1 day per caster level, and the vision shows no more than 1 minute of events. If the event was not reflected in the surface at the time (for example, if it occurred just out of sight of a mirror, or the blade was sheathed), then the surface shows anything relevant (such as the edge of the killer’s arm, or the horrified face of an onlooker) that it may have reflected, or, if it has nothing to show, the spell simply fails.
If the reflected surface is a body of water (such as a river or lake), it is the body of water itself that is important, not the actual water droplets. As such, water removed from a lake and put into a bowl would not work for this spell, but water from a river would work normally, even though it is not the same water that was there when the event occurred.

True Seeing, Greater

This functions as the spell true seeing, except as noted here. The effects of greater true seeing apply to anything you see, regardless of how far away it is, instead of being limited to objects within 120 feet. Additionally, unlike true seeing, the benefits of greater true seeing can be used in conjunction with other magic, such as clairaudience/clairvoyance.

X-Ray Vision

This spell allows you to see into and through solid matter. This x-ray vision only functions up to a range of 30 feet., although you can see as though you were looking at something in normal light, even if there is no illumination. X-ray vision can penetrate 1 foot of stone, 1 inch of common metal, or up to 3 feet of wood or dirt. Thicker substances or a thin sheet of lead blocks the vision.